\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLaura Jane Coulson<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tStyles \u2014 who was inspired by Murakami\u2019s book and ran the Tokyo and Berlin marathons last year, hence the connection \u2014\u00a0hasn\u2019t been known to dig deep existentially in past interviews, but this one finds him covering ground he doesn\u2019t usually. The questions he poses to Murakami are often as revealing as his own answers to other questions.<\/p>\n \n\tThe interview leads with a heady exchange \u2014\u00a0\u201cI wonder if you might have any advice to pass on to me: as a man, as an artist and as a runner?\u201d Styles asks the 77-year-old writer, whose response can be edited down to: \u201cEmbrace the contradiction\u2026 If there\u2019s something that\u2019s dirty within you, you can\u2019t just present it as is. You kind of have to turn the contradiction into something positive by sharing it with other people who might not think they have one. Sublimate those contradictions within you into art.\u201d Yet the article becomes more earthbound as it progresses, especially when Styles is talking about the influences behind his new album, and his own struggles with fame.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\u201cSomething I\u2019ve often struggled with, in the middle of a tour, is feeling like I\u2019m not sure what I\u2019m giving, not sure what I\u2019m adding to the world,\u201d Styles says. \u201cEspecially when the reward system and the kind of\u2026adulation that you can receive feels so loud. Like clearly I\u2019m getting so much from this, I\u2019m getting all this energy. People are giving me so much, which I deeply appreciate. But what am I contributing? At times I felt quite existential about that.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThat existentialism extends to how one creates art when a person is so famous that it\u2019s difficult for them to be normal and observe life. \u201cFor me, one of the things that can be complicated is that, as an artist, say if you\u2019re a novelist or a musician or a filmmaker, you\u2019re an observer \u2014 but when you become a known person, you become the observed.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\tHe says he was inspired by communal feeling of the nightclubs in Berlin and the anonymity of a dancefloor, where some of the album was recorded, and artists like British electronic producers Floating Points and Jamie XX and German techno DJs Fadi Mohem and Ben Klock.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI wanted to recreate [what] I had on the dance floor, being lost in instrumentation and the musicality,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was so immersive, like, this is how I want to feel when I\u2019m on stage too. I don\u2019t want it to feel like a sermon I\u2019m delivering. I wanted it to feel like, oh, we\u2019re in this music together. Like I\u2019m in it with you.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFrom there, it\u2019s not a far leap to the commonalities between electronic music and the zen qualities of running. \u201cI\u2019ve found the hypnotic, meditative aspect of music to have a lot of synergy with the meditative aspect of running,\u201d Styles says. \u201cWhen I\u2019m running is when I have\u2026time to think a lot about what I\u2019m making and other things in life too.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBoth Styles and Murakami spoke about the possessiveness many artists feel before sharing a creation with the the world. \u201cI think there\u2019s a point when you\u2019re making something, when it feels so pure to you; a really beautiful moment where it\u2019s finished and it\u2019s just yours,\u201d Styles says. \u201cThen there\u2019s almost a sadness at the handing-over. You have to let it go, like sending your kid off to school, and then it feels somewhat detached from you. But only in the last couple years have I realized how much of people\u2019s responses to it are not necessarily about me at all. I think I\u2019m of less importance.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cAnd that can be quite scary, realizing that it\u2019s not about me, but it can also be really freeing to know actually, my job here is to just remain a person, and to keep recording that,\u201d he concludes. \u201cThat\u2019s what my job is. Rather than me being supposed to deliver the answer and let everyone know what life is about. I think there\u2019s freedom in realizing that actually my job is to let people watch while I ask the questions. Because questions are more interesting than answers.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-variety-2020\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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